It's a hectic one, am warning you now. Introductions will be short cos the rest that goes on after the jump is all jamPACKED.

See for yourself (told ya it's gonna be short).

The old: the music may be decades old but the most successful band in history charges into the gaming world, showing us its box art and its bundle. As for the new, Nintendo's fancy new controller is not looking back - you're gonna have to get the new games if you want to make full use of Wii MotionPlus since Nintendo won't add support for older games. Meanwhile, Nintendo is looking forward to coming months, where they expect the hardware sales that they've enjoyed for a long time.

The virus is spreading and Japan is about to be overrun by zombies...in a manner of speaking. The newly-launched Resident Evil 5 (PS3, Xbox 360) took the Japanese gaming scene by storm from March 2nd to the 8th. Figures inside.

The PlayStation Portable proved to be the king of the hardware hill for the week of March 2 to March 8 Japan, while combined sales of the DS Lite and DSi put the Nintendo handheld at second place. On the software side, both versions of Resident Evil 5 made it the top three.

Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2 and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time (Wii, DS) came out in Japan two weeks ago, so it'd be interesting to know how those games fared on their first week. Let's take a little trip to Japan and see how the Japanese gamers are spending their gaming cash, shall we?

Lucky for Square Enix, there's nothing like starting the year with a big bang in sales. The figures for Japanese game sales for January 5 to 11 have been published by Media Create. Surprise, suprise, Dissidia: FInal Fantasy is still on top!

A nation in recession, Japan apparently bit its gaming purse tight in 2008 to weather the economic storm. Overall, the market dropped 15% from 2007 with both hardware and software sales experiencing their respective slowdowns. Details inside.

Square Enix proves once again just how much of a power player it is in the industry. Dissidia: Final Fantasy is currently the top-selling game in Japan, causing PSP sales to get pumped up even higher than the Wii's. Nintendo still bagged top spot though, with the DSi selling more than any platform.

Here's the latest Media Create report: Nintendo gets an encouraging start this December, with Wii and the DS dominating the hardware charts. After its strong performance the previous week, the PS3 sales drop quite a bit for December, as with the PSP. More figures and details inside.

It's been another week, so let's take a look at how our platforms are doing on the Japanese markets, once again care of Media Create. The hardware chart shows strong performance this time around, with the PS3 getting a sales boost. Note that this sales strength cannot be attributed to Black Friday - they don't have that in Japan.